Unmatched Wife: Not His To Claim Anymore novel Chapter 184

MATTHEW

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I looked at her for a long moment. I thought about Dr. Martinez’s assessment–the coercion hypothesis, the possibility that Mia was a lever being used by someone else, the behavioral escalation that didn’t fit her established patterns.

I thought about the frightened thing I’d seen in her expression, one second before she’d closed it off.

“I won’t call the police today,” I said. “But Mia, hear me when I say this. If you come near Theo again if you approach him, follow him, use anyone else to get access to him–I will stop being merciful. I don’t care what else is happening in your life. He is off limits.”

She looked at me with an expression I couldn’t fully read. Something that was more than hurt and less than anger. “You’re choosing a dead woman over me,” she said quietly.

“I’m choosing my son,” I said. “And yes, I’m choosing Bianca’s memory. Because whatever I failed to give her when she was alive, I can at least do right by what she left behind.” I moved to the door and opened it. “You need to leave now.”

She left.

I stood at the door for a moment after she’d gone, listening to her footsteps recede down the corridor.

Marcus appeared from the adjacent room with the promptness of someone who’d been positioned to reappear as soon as the door opened.

“You let her go,” he said.

“We have no proof of anything,” I said. “And she’s not the only one responsible for what happened to Bianca.” I moved back to my desk. “I’m not entirely blameless in my wife’s death, Marcus. I’m not going to pretend otherwise by making Mia the sole villain.”

Marcus absorbed this. “And the coercion theory?”

“She’s frightened of something,” I said. “I saw it for a second before she covered it. Whatever is pushing her toward Theo, it’s not just her feelings about me and our history.” I sat down. “But I can’t help her if she won’t tell me what it actually is. And right now, my priority is the assembly.”

Marcus nodded slowly, accepting this if not entirely agreeing with it.

He was opening his mouth to say something further when the door opened again.

Thorne Lockwood.

He came in precisely at ten o’clock, which I noted because precision in timing was either a habit or a statement, and I hadn’t yet decided which this was. He was dressed more casually than I’d expected–not the formal presentation I’d associated with high- level administrative officials, but something that suggested he’d calibrated deliberately to a pack Alpha’s office rather than arriving in the mode of someone expecting deference. He had a briefcase, compact and functional, and he extended his hand as he entered with the ease of someone who’d done this thousands of times and had reduced it to pure reflex.

“Alpha Morrison.” His grip was firm, brief, professional. “Matthew. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you properly. I apologize again for the parking lot ambush.”

“Nothing to apologize for,” I said, and meant it in the sense that I’d decided we were beginning from a clean slate and whatever I’d been told about him or suspected about him was going to be tested against what I actually observed. “This is my Beta, Marcus Cole. Marcus, this is Thorne Lockwood, Chief of Staff to the Alpha King.”

Thorne shook Marcus’s hand with the same easy professionalism. Marcus returned it with the pleasant neutrality he deployed when he was assessing someone and didn’t want them to know it.

“I’ll leave you both to it,” Marcus said, which was the agreed–upon arrangement–he would step out, but not far.

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Thorne took the chair across from my desk when I gestured toward it, settling into it with the comfort of someone who spent a significant portion of their life in other people’s offices and had learned to be at home in them.

“Thank you for seeing me,” he said. “I know you have a significant day ahead.”

“The assembly,” I said.

“I heard you’d moved it to tonight.” He said it with the tone of someone confirming information rather than revealing it, which meant he had sources for pack administrative communications that were faster than I’d expected. “I think that’s the right call. The waiting is worse than the thing itself, in my experience.”

It was almost exactly what I’d said to Marcus twenty minutes ago.

“What can I do for you, Mr. Lockwood?” I said.

“Thorne, please.” He settled back slightly, the posture of someone shifting from formal approach to something more substantive. “I wanted to meet you in person because I’ve been following your family’s situation with more than administrative interest. When we process entry approvals, it’s usually routine–the standard review, the standard criteria. Your application caught my attention specifically because of Theo’s circumstances.”

“Why specifically?”

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